Leicester City maintain pace at Crystal Palace to raise hopes of another unlikely Premier League title

Jamie Vardy, right, scored his 19th goal in 21 league matches in Leicester City's 2-0 win at Crystal Palace. AFP

A break from recent history continued Leicester City’s assault on the present.

Snapping a run of four successive defeats against Crystal Palace, the 2015/16 Premier League champions moved third in the table.

A 2-0 victory at Selhurst Park arrived courtesy of second-half goals from Caglar Soyuncu and Jamie Vardy, a first-time scorer and an all-too-familiar one. It maintained an even brighter start to the season than Leicester's title-winning campaign.

With 23 points from 11 matches, they have begun better than four seasons ago, when they embroidered the Premier League with its most improbable tale. Now, they sit only two points behind Manchester City, the current champions, in second. A further six ahead, leaders Liverpool remain well in view.

An unlikely lurch at another top-flight crown came in the unlikely confines of the capital: before Palace, Leicester had won only once in their past 14 league trips to London.

Two away days in little more than a week have offered 11 goals and none conceded. Building upon that record result at Southampton, Brendan Rodgers' renaissance has added a few more brush strokes. Quite clearly, Leicester are looking up.

"It was a big result, we knew it would be a tough game and the first half showed that,” Vardy said afterwards. “We have struggled here in the past. To get the result and clean sheet, we are over the moon."

The opening 45 minutes could have brought them back down to earth. Few chances gave little to warm cold hearts on a chilly afternoon in South London.

Predictably, Vardy had the best opportunity of the first half, racing onto James Maddison’s sublime through-ball on 18 minutes to force Vicente Guaita into action from a tight angle.

Vardy personifies Leicester’s rebirth under Rodgers: since the former Liverpool manager's appointment in February, the striker has struck 19 goals in 21 league matches.

Last time out, at St Mary's on the south coast, Leicester went into the break 5-0 up. Twelve minutes into the second half, they at least had one. Guaita had tipped over Jonny Evans' header and from another corner – their sixth of the match – Soyuncu nodded home.

Once more, Maddison was the architect, although Palace will surely rue that Patrick Van Aanholt missed his clearance at the near post and nobody picked up Soyuncu. The summer signing, already negating the loss of Harry Maguire to Manchester United, is hardly the most inconspicuous. He is both hefty and hirsute.

It was hardly defending Roy Hodgson would encourage. Until that point, the former England manager had never lost to Leicester, a sequence stretching back eight encounters.

If the opener came from an unlikely source, the identity of the second scorer felt much more expected. A minute from time, Vardy exchanged a neat one-two with substitute Demarai Gray before dragging a left-footed shot past Guaita to seal the points.

It was a beautiful team goal, contrived by Youri Tielemans and caressed by Gray’s initial stepover, and summed up perfectly Rodgers' impact on the squad. Evidently, Vardy is the grateful and gifted recipient.

"I am just taking each game as it comes,” he said. “I am getting a lot of chances fed to me from my teammates and at the moment I am putting them in the back of the net."

It was Vardy’s seventh goal in his past five games; his 10th of the campaign. It carried him to the top of the scoring charts, just as he was the first to double-figures in 2015/16. Up to third, and so patently full of vim and vigour, Leicester will hope history is repeating.